Personal health, safety and well-being
The health and safety of our employees and our customers is managed under our Group-wide health-and-safety strategy, agreed by the O2 Board and overseen by Health and Safety Champion Peter Richardson, Managing Director, Airwave. The strategy is published in full on our intranet, Vital O2.
Key health-and-safety issues for O2 are safe driving, fire, work at heights, slips, trips and falls, the use of Display Screen Equipment, control of contractors and violence to staff. Our health-and-safety policies, procedures and activities focus on these key aspects. We have mandatory health-and-safety training for all employees. In the UK and Ireland we have achieved certification to the international health-and-safety system OHSAS18001. In each of our markets, our performance is independently reviewed as part of our insurance programme.
We have health-and-safety committees in each of our businesses. In O2 UK a single formal Safety Committee meeting is held on a quarterly basis. The core membership comprises Employee Safety Representatives both for managers and non-managers, thus representing all employees. Other members include Trade Union branch secretaries and local Trade Union Safety representatives, Human Resources, Property and Health and Safety departments, and other attendees who are invited as and when issues emerge.
In 2004/05 we did not receive any health and safety enforcement notices.
Managers consult regularly with recognised trade unions on health and safety matters. We are also represented on the European Commission Social Dialogue Committee Health and Safety Working Group.
We comply with key elements of the ILO Safety and Health Management System 2001, the UK's HSG65 and the guideline document supporting the OHSAS18001 standard. Accident reporting arrangements are in line with the ILO Reporting Code of Practice 1995. We have not established separate policies or programmes on HIV/AIDS as this has not been raised as a priority issue for us in consultations with our workforce or other stakeholders.
We had set ourselves a target of reducing absence because of work-related injury and illness by 10 per cent. We have since improved our data collection to confirm that the number of days lost from work-related accidents is actually very low.
During 2004/05 there were 257 accidents resulting in 487 days lost in sick absences.1 Based on our total workforce this is equivalent to 16 accidents and 30 days lost in sick absences per 1,000 full-time equivalent staff. Around six per cent of our UK workforce took part in driving training.
Our main focus has now shifted to improving the general health of our workforce and we have rolled out wellbeing programmes across the business to help us improve health and fitness and to reduce absenteeism.
Following the example set by O2 Ireland's 'Perfect Balance' programme, promoting wellbeing and work/life initiatives, we launched O2 Balance in the UK in December 2004. This offers our employees ways of helping themselves to manage their own working life in a healthy way. Among the services are stress management, mobile massages, weight watching, nutritional advice, cholesterol testing, yoga classes, and drug and alcohol awareness.
Since launch, nearly 4,000 massages have been given to employees at their workstations in the UK alone. We intend to increase our budget for work-based health activities in 2005/06 and to concentrate on exercise, fitness, nutrition, diet, wellbeing and stress management across all our businesses.
O2 Germany is also pursuing the wellbeing initiative and last year set up a subsidised on-site gym - Studio2 - at its headquarters. Advice on a range of health issues, including heart disease, is being provided as well as free flu vaccinations. We have also run a stress management campaign and a stop smoking campaign, in partnership with the German Cancer Research Centre.
Our UK Employee Assistance Programme offers a range of personal services such as counselling, legal and financial advice and useful contacts for people with, for example, depression, marital problems and disability. After the Asian tsunami of 2004, we offered appropriate counselling for employees directly affected by the crisis.
